The women's golf team begins its second tournament of the season tomorrow at the Mason Rudolph Championship in Nashville, Tenn.

The tournament, hosted by Vanderbilt, will take place at the 6,276-yard Legends Club course. It will feature four of the top ten teams in the GolfWorld Coaches' Poll.

"This is a great tournament with lots of good teams," head coach Greg Allen said. "Auburn's here, and they beat us last week."

After a disappointing final round in last week's NCAA Fall Preview that dropped the Wildcats from first to third place, Allen thinks his team's practice over the past week helped the team's confidence heading into Nashville.

"Practice (this week) has been great, but the girls were anxious to come back out and prove themselves," Allen said.

After an individual third-place finish last week, Erica Blasberg will return to the tournament that jump-started her freshman year.

The sophomore from Corona, Calif. came to the tournament last year as an unknown freshman, but left runner-up and never finished out of the top 10 the rest of the season ÷ a streak that she will look to continue this weekend.

"We finished second here last year, and it was the kick-start to Erica's year, as she finished second as well," Allen said.

Sophomore Cassandra Kirkland finished tied with Blasberg for third in the Fall Preview after leading much of the first two days.

With the two top players being sophomores, Allen has asked the veterans to step up and take a leadership role with such a young team.

"I love this team," he said. "We have great chemistry and great leadership from the juniors."

Allen said he is specifically impressed with the leadership role that redshirt sophomore Lani Elston has brought since joining the team from the University of Idaho.

"Lani has been really mature so far this season," Allen said. "She's becoming a great leader."

The only thing Allen hopes Elston doesn't bring is her recent bad luck.

After landing in Nashville on Wednesday, Elston noticed a rip in her travel golf bag and found her driver broken into two pieces.

Luckily, she was prepared with a spare.

"This is the fourth time it's happened to her," Allen said. "Thankfully, she packs two."

With expectations running high in the Wildcats' favor, the last thing Allen wants is for the bad-luck pattern to continue.

"Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come," he said.